This week we’re delving into work/life balance. How do we get the work done while having young families? How do we prioritize? What do we let go?
For context, Christine’s kids are aged 9 and 11 and Vicky’s are 7 and 10.
What does a typical day look like?
Christine: I get my kids up and ready for school every day and I’m typically home by 8.20am and which point I get myself fed and organized. I usually try to fit in a workout before I do any work. Then I settle in to about a two hour work stretch. But because I’m at home that’s punctuated with running a load of washing, emptying the dishwasher etc.
I prefer to get creative work done in the morning and then later I do admin tasks like emails, website updates etc.
But I’ll also be fitting in meetings, community get-togethers, catching up with Vicky, signing books at a local store, school visits etc.
I rarely write in the afternoons once I’ve collected the kids unless I’m on a deadline. I find I can’t work as easily when the kids are home. I usually reserve that time for catching up on chores with an audiobook or podcast in my ears to motivate me.
Vicky: My morning sound similar to Christine’s. (Maybe because we often meet up, haha!) I get home around 8:40am after dropping off the kids. I work OR work out (I’m really trying to do both but whichever I do first gets the better part of me.) I prefer to work in cafés so that I don’t get distracted by house stuff and the piles of messiness around me. I work for about two to three hours and then run errands and eat. I usually nap in the afternoon before the kids get home, and then I pick up work again if I have any downtime, or after they go to bed.
My brain likes working… it’s kind of my default mode, so I find that I am constantly noodling on things. Mornings are best for my more thoughtful tasks, and otherwise it’s lots of marketing and admin stuff in the cracks of the day. I can also get back into writing (usually revisions) at night if I’m in the thick of it. That’s also why I like having picture books as side projects, because they’re short enough that I can hold the whole text in my head and noodle on it whenever I have a moment. And yes, all this is around everything else that is going on, so it doesn’t all happen every day!
Tips for managing a work at home way of life
Christine: Writing has to fit into the gaps. When my kids were younger I was very adept at writing in 20 minute bursts when they napped, while they were in swim class, dance class, etc. Now I have bigger chunks of time but I still have to fit in the writing in between life stuff. So much life stuff.
When you work at home it is very easy to get distracted by all the things that need doing in the house. When I just can’t focus I’ll go for a walk to clear my head or I’ll take my laptop to the local library and sit in the children’s section where I find it’s just the right amount of background noise to work to. Plus I now try to reserve any chores in the house until after school. Sometimes I can even encourage my kids to do some of those chores for me!
Vicky: When my kids were younger, I also had to find time in weird moments. Also, because I was working full-time. I wrote a lot of books in my head while rocking my baby to sleep. Maybe I actually started writing books because I didn’t know what else to do while I was rocking my baby to sleep.
Now, I write and illustrate full-time. (Or part-time, really, with the kids. I’ll talk more about what went into my quitting my day job in a future post.) I love leaving my house to write. I spend a lot of time at cafés. I probably know every café, particularly with food, within a 20 minute radius. I also love retreats. It’s a luxury that only comes around once or twice a year, but I kind of store up all of my thinking for big, new projects in advance and then crank it all out during a retreat. My latest book series both came out like this: AVA LIN was written during a retreat with my critique partners, Christine and Faith, and ONE MAD CAT was written during the Kindling Words East conference.
Because I love writing away from my home, I try to keep everything mobile. I draft in Google docs so I can move between devices easily (I switch to Word once I’m working with my agent or editor) and I now use Procreate for illustrations so I can draw on my iPad. But yes, sometimes I have to work in my house. I still keep it mobile though. I’m almost never sitting at my desk, unless I’m on a Zoom or I’ve screwed up my drawing arm enough that I need a proper ergo situation for a while.
Christine: Oh yes, our retreats are magical! And once when I was on a deadline and it was in that pandemic time when my whole family was home all the time I booked 24 hours in a hotel all by myself to get my chapter book draft done (book three in THE WISH LIBRARY series).
Tools we use to manage our time
Christine: If I’m struggling with getting started, I’ll set a timer for 20 minutes and force myself to write for that time (I sometimes use the Forest app as extra motivation). If I’m in need of background noise I’ll find a playlist on Apple Music like “Background Music” or “Coffee shop sounds”
And everything I think of that needs doing that is distracting me from concentrating on writing goes into my Apple notes so I don’t forget things like making doctor appointments and filling out a tax document.
Vicky: Thanks to Christine (who discovered it thanks to Carter Higgins), who gave me this tip but apparently doesn’t use it, I use AirTable to manage all my tasks! I use the free version to track all of my workstreams now (and I’ve even thrown my personal tasks in there now.) My system is a little messy, but I basically have buckets of tasks that escalate in urgency. I put deadlines on every task, and I set up automated rules that move the tasks into a new bucket as the deadline approaches. I also have an “on hold” bucket for tasks that are stalled because of somebody else.
Day to day, I basically try to clear all the little crap off my Urgent to-do list until I can focus on one big task, like book sketches, or a manuscript revision. For me, it’s usually about clearing all the little pesky tasks out so that I can get the brain space to do the more thoughtful, creative tasks.
Christine: If I ever have as many projects to manage as you, Vicky, I’ll be coming over for AirTable tips!
Any other hacks for work-life balance?
Christine: For me, I find that life interferes with writing more than it does the other way around so I’ve outsourced where I can. I get a meal delivery kit, I have a cleaning service, and I get groceries delivered.
Vicky: I think I had to stop trying to get stuff done with the kids around. Anything while they’re around is bonus. It’s getting easier as they get older, but I still want to make sure I’m present for them and not distracted or impatient (not always possible, but I try!)
For me, because working is my default mode, I have to also remind myself to step away sometimes. Sometimes, a day of doing nothing or a day spent cleaning the house that’s making me anxious will make me feel like I can breathe again. So, the whole “write every day” thing, I don’t do that. (I would still prefer that my house just cleaned itself, but I haven’t found a solution for that yet.)
Christine: One final note from me, I am very privileged to be able to work this way. Everyone’s balance is going to look different but I hope there are some ideas in this post that you can apply to your life too. Now over to our readers, what are your tips for a writing work-life balance?